The present invention relates to a program development technology utilizing components.
A user of software components (such as ActiveX control provided by Windows of Microsoft Corp., in U.S.A) is able to develop a program by laying out the components on a container (such as Visual Basic Form of Microsoft Corp.). The user can utilize all interfaces, for examples, properties, methods and events, which are open in the respective components.
Further, some of the components yield utility values by combining a plurality of components. In this type of components, the combination of these components can be utilized by setting interfaces of the individual component.
Moreover, on the occasion of an application program group-oriented development, a fixed template can be formed by making use of a template function. Then, this type of template has been used for an initial setting of the application.
As the functions of the components are more enriched nowadays, the number of the interfaces thereof becomes larger. While on the other hand, the users of the components do not necessarily utilize all the interfaces thereof.
On the contrary, it requires a tremendous labor such as elaborate read of a manual to search a target interface out of a great quantity of interfaces.
Further, when utilizing the combination of the plurality of components, for instance, in the case of using a group box plus option buttons, tool bar plus command buttons, and a tub plus property pages and property sheets, a mode of these combinations is fixed as the case may be. The user, however, must set the interfaces for each individual component even in such a fixed mode of combinations.
Moreover, in the case of developing the application on a group basis, the template at an initial stage of the development can be determined by utilizing the template function. At a stage of developing the target application from the template, however, all the interfaces of the components can be utilized. In addition, the mode of combining the component is diversified.
Therefore, the interface utilizing methods and the combination modes are not unified, with the result that an application design might often differ from others within the same group. Moreover, the non-unified utilizing method results in an inefficient maintenance of the program.